On December 17, 2021, Washington Governor Jay Inslee, Senate Majority Leader Andy Billig, and House Speaker Laurie Jinkins released a joint statement announcing that the premium assessment under the Washington Cares Fund would be delayed. Employers had been set to collect premiums from Washington employees starting on January 1, 2022, but with this announcement, state leaders have “strongly encourage[d]” employers to “pause on collecting premiums.”
Background
In 2021, Washington established a long-term care benefit program for Washington workers called the WA Cares Fund. The program was set to implement a mandatory 0.58 percent payroll deduction on employee wages to create a state trust fund, which, beginning in 2025, would be used to fund certain long-term care costs for eligible Washington workers. Employers were set to begin collecting premiums from employees on January 1, 2022.
Recent Challenges
A citizens’ initiative (I-1436) was introduced on June 29, 2021, which proposed allowing workers the choice to opt in or out of the state’s long-term care insurance scheme, as the law had previously allowed only a one-time opt-out window. Then, on November 9, 2021, a class action lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington alleging that the law was preempted by the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA), was unconstitutional, unlawfully discriminated against employees based on age and residency, and violated other laws. The...
The Department of Health and Human Services capped off a week of intensive anti-fraud activity with the launching of a six-month healthcare False Claims Act self-disclosure pilot program in partne...